On thanksgiving, when my mom called to do her usual holiday yelling, I had a realization: My mother’s expectations for me are her problem, not mine. This lead to me setting some new boundaries.

Without going into too much detail, I told her I didn’t want a close relationship with her (awful, insane) family, and that as an adult that was my choice. I also told her I was taking responsibility for my relationship with them, would be programming everyone’s birthdays etc into my phone at Christmas, and that it wasn’t fair to expect her to remind me. I said I would hang up the phone next time she yelled at me about this.

She cried and told me she felt so disrespected, I told her I was sorry she felt that way—I reminded her that she doesn’t like them either. I didn’t apologize, to my shock she stopped crying pretty quickly. Her anger evaporated when i grey rocked. She only called me once after our initial conversation to cry and tell me her actions were only motivated by others happiness (HAHAHAHA).

She tried to manipulate me in so many different ways, and I hit every one with cold hard logic. For whatever reason I didn’t feel the crushing guilt I normally do. I didn’t call her back. I didn’t text an apology that only undermines the boundary. I didn’t worry about her.

The next day she told me she recognized her reaction was over the top. I’m feeling pretty amazing about this turn of events. The question is whether either of us follow through—she said she respected my decision.

Something you may want to note is that she may, in her head, tell herself she's let you do this to keep control (obviously that's not the way it is but it'll stop her freaking out about it) and then she might slowly try small nice things or subtle things to try and get you back.

My mum does this. I'll break the weak boundary we had to set up a new one, she'll be angry at first then say she's okay with it, she'll say that it's okay that I did that to make it more her decision than mine to take back control then do things and super nice to get me back. Last Christmas she spent over £100 on me when she claimed she's broke and she's never spent much more than £50 on my birthday or Christmas present. She also kept tagging me in things I used to like on Facebook, she doesn't know I don't like them because every talk we have ends up being about her and now I always restrict what I say to her to the bare minimum.
Thankfully it was easy to see what her thought process was and I breezed over all the presents. Didn't make a big deal out of it, got a bunch of stuff I wanted and kept her at a distance.

I would keep collecting but would cut all the emotional strings attached. Eventually the extravagant gifts just stopped and a few shitty obviously horribly funny "hurtful" gifts were sent. Then they stopped completely (yay!).

You are amazing. That is exactly how this shit should be handled. I did it with my birth mother. She would send me money with guilt trippy notes like "myabe we could go to the movies sometime?". And I took her money but never responded. Asshole tax!!

My birth father use to do this. He'd send me money with the holiday cards he'd make (like fold a piece of paper, write "Happy [whatever holiday]" on it, and then sign his name inside with a note saying, "enclosed you will find $X". I think he was paranoid that the mail carriers would steal the cash, so he always wrote the exact amount of money he sent me in the card so I knew exactly how much he actually sent me.

I cut off contact with him after he enabled my sister's abusive husband after we'd moved her to a secret safe house. My birth father was an abusive husband to our mom, so he had all these tricks about how to stalk and track people down. No doubt he shared these ideas with his son-in-law. He believed that the only reason his daughter would suddenly leave her marriage was because she had a mental disorder. No way abuse could have been involved. He had gone so far as to call me and fain concern about my sister, which I met by telling him that for her own safety I would not tell him where she was, that I knew where she was, and all he needed to know was that she was well and safe. I didn't give him the information he wanted, so what did he do? Accompany his abuser son-in-law to my sister's workplace with a bouquet of roses and make a scene about how she needed to come home. The husband found her safe house in a matter of weeks after she left because he just followed her there after she left work one day. I was out of state going to college at the time, and there was literally nothing I could do to physically help the situation my sister was in. I was so pissed that my dad couldn't even take my warning to him seriously.

I never spoke with my father again after that. He still sent me holiday cards with increasing amounts of money in them. I knew it was bait money. He'd periodically call me, which I'd let go to voicemail. He eventually stopped calling, and when I moved I asked my sister to not give him my forwarding address. He started sending my holiday cards addressed to my brother and his wife's address, and they'd pass them along to me.
The cards eventually dwindled when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer (got that news through my siblings). My brother and his wife decided to go visit him one last time before he died so he could at least meet his granddaughters. It was a disappointing visit. My brother got none of the closure he wanted. They'd asked me if I wanted to send my father anything that they could bring down. I broke down and sent him a card. It wasn't so much of a "get well card" but that's more or less how it looked. I'd been no contact with him for four years up until he died. Sent him that card, and the response my brother brought back to me was how my father commented on how neat my handwriting was.

Now I get holiday cards from my father's brother and his wife, neither of whom I've seen since 2003. I have no correspondence with them at all beyond them sending me a $5 coffee gift card in the mail for my birthday and maybe a Christmas card.

At the end of the day, if an ACoN can at least take the money their narcissistic parent sends them and leave all the other bullshit outside, it's a win, IMO. We will never get closure from them. We will never get a decent human being for a parent. May as well take the cash because that's the only thing we can use they are offering.

I remember when he sent me $50 in his Easter card shortly after I stopped returning his calls. I was a broke college student, and I had the immediately reaction of "I don't want your bait money." I left the card and money sit on my bedroom desk for a couple days not sure what I wanted to do with it. I came to the conclusion that if he wants to keep sending me money, that's his choice. I never asked him for the things he sent me. I never asked him for anything. I never had a close connection with him. Despite the abuse, my mother always insisted I talk to my father when he called me as I grew up. She didn't want to deny me the chance for connection and figured I could decide on my own what sort of relationship I wanted with him. Even as a kid, mentality was, "I'll talk to him for his sake," because even as a kid I didn't feel he contributed anything good or enjoyable to my life.

When he betrayed my sister the way he did, I just said "fuck it." What I know of the guy isn't even stuff I like. Why subject myself to maintaining a relationship that does nothing for me? If he wants to keep being a financial provider in the way of sending money with holiday cards, he can do that. I don't owe him anything for that.

It's rough. I don't know how my mom was before her abusive marriages, but she's her own brand of N. I have no way of knowing if her N qualities have always been part of her personality or if they are a product of being a domestic violence victim. While my birth father seemingly had no empathy or capacity for intimate human connection, my mom is the naive type of empathetic. Self sacrificing and self neglecting in ways that ultimately hurt her, and then she expects us kids to fix the problems she created for herself.

aCoNs will never get reasonable parents. You're right about that. We have to accept them as they are, and then we have to decide if we can live healthy lives with them still being a part of our lives.

I find it so strange that your mother would insist that you stay in contact with him. Like she thought he would be a sane human being with his child even though he wasn't with her? Ugh. The lack of logic and simple ability to shield you from him and his shit is just fucked up.

You are absolutely right. We have to make all the decisions for our own safety and health.

Yeah, I don't really understand her logic behind it also given I repeatedly told her as a child that I didn't like talking with him because it was awkward and boring. He had no idea how to hold a conversation with a child. I was two when my parents separated, so he never really got to know me beyond from when I was a baby. That's part of why I think mom insisted I keep talking to him. Partly the "he's your father" argument and partly the idea that he can't make it sound like my mom was "keeping me from him" as a custody issue if she always made me talk to him over the phone. I wasn't allowed unsupervised visits with him. Even as a young adult, I didn't want to spend time alone with him.

My father did something similar to me. My birth mother left when I was 2 months old and he never said anything bad about her, which is not horrible, but then, when I was 15, she contacted him and told him she wanted me to come live with her and he was convinced it would be great. We were complete strangers and I had no idea what to expect. She didn't either, apparently, because two weeks after I moved in with her, she went off about how much like my father I was. Well...duh...he raised me. But he threw me at her, knowing exactly who she was and what she would do with me. Kind of like how he let my stepmother discipline me and never said a word about it even though he knew she was beating the shit out of me and verbally abusing me.

Not to say that my father was a good parent to me, either.

I think he just genuinely didn't want to deal with me and kept fobbing me off on other people. shrug

How do you deal with love bombing??? I feel like my mom does this a lot and I'm catching on to it, but I don't know how to handle it as I don't want to accept or encourage the manipulative "love" tactics or give her more reasons to attack me in the future "ex: look at all the stuff I've given you and done for you, how dare you go against my wishes now you are so ungrateful, etc.". But I know if i reject these she'll freak out even more. How do you handle it? I hate hypocrisy and acting like I want her love bombing when I don't, but I also don't want unnecessary drama. Idk what to do about it.

Tbh it is different for everyone but what I do is just accept what she gives me, don't specifically ask for anything "extra" and don't make a big deal out of it. Don't overly praise her, if she decided to randomly five you something accept it and maybe say thanks but do the bare minimum. It's hard to do so but the best thing to do is just let go.

I don't give my mum any extra praise or thanks than necessary. I say thanks in the most minimal way then move on like it's nothing. If she tries to guilt you just say you didn't ask for any of that stuff.

This gem is a good one to say: " you shouldn't do something mice for someone expecting a reward. Do it because you want to."
People can't expect anything more than a thanks from someone that's given them a gift or done something nixe like taken them shipping. They should do it because they want to and it's manipulative for them to guilt someone over a niceity. I hope that helps, feel free to message me if you want any more info or advice :)

This is great! It took me a long time to realize that my parents work in tandem: he is terrible to me, usually on her behalf, and then she love bombs. It is a weird dynamic. Anyway, with the latest round of Holiday emotional manipulation came cash from Mom and requests to hang out sometime. Nope, Mom! You cannot sic your husband on me and make me stress eat, drink too much and cry and then just act like nothing happened.

And before anyone asks, no she is not abused and yes I know she is complicit in his abuse of me. When I was a child if we had a disagreement she would physically leave the room and tag him in and he would scream at me right out the gate despite having no clue what we had been fighting about.

I remember when I first realized and set boundaries with my family. I immediately felt different and could see the difference in the way my family treated me. But after 35 years of being a certain way with them, I caught myself easily slipping back into old habits and letting my boundaries get crossed. My mother and older sister are true, master manipulators, especially towards me because I'm youngest and mostly raised by them and at first I didn't even notice what they were doing. I find it really hard to protect boundaries in a healthy way and doubting myself often. So I just decided that I will only interact with them when I feel I am in control of the situation. I don't go to their place any more and if they want to see me and my daughters they can drive ten minutes to our house. Everything they say is crap so I just ignore all messages. They can call me if they want but no guarantees I'll answer.

They are unable to show genuine remorse towards me so I told them I could not move on until they learn how to truly be remorseful and apologize for at least one thing they have done to me specifically. I do not have any expectations because I'm certain they are not consciously remorseful at all. This is confirmed by hate texts they send my wife every once in way.

I have never felt better in my life. So this just means I don't make much of an effort to include them and I respond to them on my time when I am ready. I am saying this in case anyone expects a change in behavior outside themselves because we should know that any change in their behavior is just not going to happen. There will be stretches of time where we believe we are on the right track and there will be disappointment and anger when we realize that we failed to protect ourselves again. This is normal and we get better at it. Journey well.

Watch out for that "reasonable" final response. You witnessed the switching emotions first hand. Yelling. Crying. Rage. Cold shouldering (she only called you once? she thought she was punishing you, dear). Guilting ("motivated by others"). And once none of that worked, she went with what works on regular people - feigning a "realization" that she was overreacting.

It's all bait and switch. Every tactic was in effort to get a response. None of it worked so she decided to keep you on the line by giving it slack. Don't be surprised when this all comes crashing down.

Whenever I feel confused by a seeming "win" with a narcissist, I ask myself: how much did that really cost them? Saying "I respect your decision" costs four words and a little hot air. If you're truly dealing with a narcissist, that's all that was.

Enough about her. Congrats to you! I want to high 5 you so bad right now. Being over the guilt once and for all is so liberating and feels so amazing. Things will never be the same again, in a good way. That destroys one of the major tools Narcs use against us.

It was like magic! This has been a long time in the making. Last time I was home she was complaining about her sister guilting her about stuff, and said a lot of the stuff to her sister I’ve said to her, so I told her as much. The CBF was palpable but she got it. As long as I stay calm she can’t get the ball rolling, it’s great.

Every holiday. Either I don’t express love to her or to her family in the right way. Sometimes both. Oh and I don’t show respect to the holiday the right way either. Does not matter what I do, it’s not good enough.

Omg just had this SAME conversation except it was over thank you cards for gifts her friends gave after having a baby recently and she kept hounding me about how she was embarrassed and couldn’t even reach out to her friend because I hadn’t sent it yet (sorry for healing and raising a child and taking 2 weeks to send a thank you!).

Has to be on their timeline. I actually caught all my family at the perfect time, they’d just finished dinner. Her response to “well mom they could call me,” was, “you’ve trained them not to call you because you don’t pick up the phone.” First off, oh please, and second OH JEEZ MOM I WONDER WHY.

Another MIL destroyed by FACTS and LOGIC

Good on you for having that courage! But be careful... Some people are masters manipulators and will say one thing just to go back and do the other the next day or week. I'm glad this has all happened the way it did. But please don't let your guard down just yet.

Oh yeah she’s definitely still going to yell at me on the next holiday, how I handle it will set the stage. I go home for Christmas and she first invited my new boyfriend, and is now expressing concern that I won’t hang out with her at all if he’s there. She always yells at me during Christmas but I can already smell a special “you don’t love me enough” tirade coming.

Over the weekend my narcmom's mother died. I was never close to her so I didn't want to go to the funeral. All the years I have been told to stay away from her and hearing how horrible of a person she is my mother still went. She asked if I wanted to go and I said no. She asked me again and I still said no. She then asked me if there was any particular reason as to why and I just turned my head and stared at her not saying a word. A few seconds later she walks away and says in the hallway, "When I'm gone you don't have to come to." I knew this was to guilt trip me and make me feel bad but I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel the need to explain myself but also I didn't want to say something that could ruin the situation here at home as I still live with her.

​

I wanted to tell her off but I figured just let the narc wallow in their bubble.

My mom always used to tell her how I embarrassed her. I was born before my parents were married, and she makes it feel like she only had my little brother to... I can’t think of a phrase for it but she had my brother to cover me up I guess..?

This happened to me when my parents found out we were moving from one metro 10 hours away from them to one that is 14 hours away. My Dad blatantly told me that I am such a disappointment to him as a child and tried guilting me.

He said that all he wants to do is spend time with us, but I pointed out that they literally never spend time with us and we have spent a week of vacation trying to a year with them. I told them that was now stopping. He also said that he would never be happy because we'd never live next door (they have no jobs or cell phone reception even where they live). I called him out on his crap and told him that if he couldn't fake being positive, happy, or supportive that he could GTFO. He has been faking it and my Mom has been trying to be his flying monkey; they alternate on who is the biggest Nparent and who is the flying monkey.
I feel you. I don't trust them anymore and I don't expect their behavior to actually be different. I just expect that they'll play the game better.

Omg I spent the last several years navigating a “I have no life so I am going to live my life for you” situation. Including, “I want to be close to my grandkids,” I was single and I am also child free. I finally got her to lay the fuck off by telling her that she was too special to waste her life living it for anyone but herself, and it was too much pressure for me.

She called me the other day to cry because her friends “don’t know me,” and how she wishes she could “share me with them.” I reminded her that I grew up seeing her friends all the time, and they know me well I just love out of state right now (IN THE SAME STATE SHE LIVES IN). This was all because a family friend complimented another family friend’s kid, and she got jealous of the attention.

Wow! Huge accomplishment on your part you should be feeling pretty good friend. I always find it funny when the tears or anger just stops it’s like “well, this is tiring and not working, next angle!”

You’ve set the boundary which is the hard part I hope following through will be smooth sailing. I hate that uncomfortable feeling of confrontation and or saying no to something but man it feels so good after to be in control of your own life.

I needed this reminder. My nmom keeps insisting on a one-on-one meeting (yikes) to discuss how my “life choices are affecting the family.” Aka being gay. She’s freaking out because she’s worried the Bible study ladies will think she RAISED me to be that way or some BS.

I’m so glad it worked out for you!! We’re all proud of you for standing up for yourself! Keep defending your boundaries, even if she doesn’t like them!

Oh it was pretty easy to spot tbh. My SiNfUl GaY HeAtHeN partner accomplished five thousand times more for my mental and physical well-being than my nmom even attempted. I’m just so glad they were able to convince me to GTFA from her. Best choice I ever made

My mom was very similar in that way. No wonder I ended up in so many unequal relationships. Then I realized other people have a responsibility to keep in touch if they want a relationship with me. People have to treat me well if they want me to be around them. I wouldn’t say she’s changed because narcissists don’t really change or ‘see the light.’ What happens is that they realize that their behavior is no longer getting them what they want. It’s kind of like training an a child. The bad behavior gets no rewards so they keep throwing out things thinking something will stick until the light bulb goes on and they realize that this time you really are done with their nonsense. Its no easy task, so well done.

This is eerily similar to my current situation. My mom’s family is terribly toxic (only took me almost 30 years to realize this) and I stopped going to family events and holidays a couple years ago. Every single year my mom tries to guilt trip me into going, usually making it into me hurting her and “can’t you just do this for me?” She doesn’t like that I stand up for myself because it reflects badly on her. I used to give in to her guilt trips, but not anymore. My well-being is too important to put on the back burner for these people. I’m finally becoming strong enough to stand up to her and it feels so good. Props to you, OP, for standing your ground.

I didn’t call her back. I didn’t text an apology that only undermines the boundary. I didn’t worry about her.

WELL DONE! One of the best things I did for myself was, through hard lessons learned over too many years, stopping the "call back, try to explain/JADE, think about the narc" routine that we were trained into performing when we (we ACoNs) were children. Great boundary setting there.

For sure way to go! I did the same thing with my Nmom before I went NC with her, and tried to be the most responsible adult as possible. She played the same tricks on me as your mom did you.

I truly hope it works out, just approach this with a responsible mindset. You’ve traveled the path of pain already, and I’m proud of you for getting out of it. Just don’t get sucked back into it, no matter what.

My nmom at first said she accepted my terms and admitted how she was so terrible and all this junk, then turned around and nearly ruined my life. Me making the final call to cut that off made me very happy and it feels great

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